Originally posted by Liberator
No HIG, a large portion is. The Teachers can't teach because they have to cater to political demagogues who haven't set foot in a classroom since they left college. They're too busy satisfying some inane political requirement that the actual lesson get's left behind.
Which shows how little you know about the education system. Teachers have to constantly take new classes related to their field to keep their job.
I'm assuming you were home schooled, or otherwise taught with the Texan textbooks that the midwest and south use.
Yes, that's right in the US there are two editions of textbooks. 'California' and 'Texas' editions. (Though both are really 'New York light' and 'New York heavy' editions more than California or Texas) The ones in the south censor quite a few things (I always assumed that it'd just have another stance on the causes of the Civil War, but with modern textbooks focusing more on economic and social causes for the war it seems that censoring certain segments of the pre-war, war, and reconstruction period has become the norm) and put interesting slants on science. Yes, I've read and looked at science, math, and history books from both.
Which I think is the root of the problem in the US. People creating division when there shouldn't be one. Folks being taught by sub-par textbooks won't be able to compete on the global market, etc.
On average the whole 'history makes whites look bad, so let's censor it!' is alive and well in a good chunk of the US. ...and sadly some folks want to sanitize it further.
Another major problem is that ciriculums aren't standardized other then some basic requirements. So if you're moving between school districts (or even worse, states) you'll have to play a lot of catch-up. This can be especially bad when moving between geographic regions of the country due to subtle and some not-so-subtle changes in textbooks and ciriculum.
Then home schooling really skews things because you have some very smart and very dumb people effectively outside of the system. Ever-increasing because people are pulling kids out of schools because it's obvious that public education is "evil and liberal." (Yet the areas with high homeschooling are ones using the conservativized Texas textbooks...) Now, there are legitimate reasons for homeschooling, especially in a very rural area or for children with learning disabilities. However, a good chunk of the people now doing it are bandwagoners whose protectionism only backfires when the kids enter college...
Anyway, the defense of any democracy is a well educated middle class. ...and right now we don't have one due to intentional misinformation and revision of history and science for the 'greater good' of certain citizens.
